• Thoughtful piece from Abigail Thernsstrom on racial politics and gerrymandering. Wish there was more of this kind of dialogue from both right and left instead of the usual racial bomb-throwing.
• Pretty cool idea: the Genetic Music Project.
• Looks to be another incident of Las Vegas cops intimidating a citizen for recording them.
• They pretty much nailed me here. Interesting to see a couple open-minded liberals use the word queen as an insult.
• Cops taswer a kid, break his arm in saggy pants altercation.
• Jury rebels against NYPD in case of woman who confronted cops over her son’s arrest in a stop-and-frisk case. Maybe I’m just noticing it more, but it seems like we’re seeing more and more of these juries who are willing to question law enforcement. That’s a good thing.

This is huge.

Chloé Kiddon and Yuriy Brun, two computer scientists at the University of Washington, have developed a system for recognising a particular type of double entendre – the “that’s what she said” joke, in which seemingly innocent sentences can be transformed into lewd utterances by appending just four short words.

The pair describe the “TWSS problem” as recognising when it is funny to follow a sentence with “that’s what she said” – they give “Don’t you think these buns are a little too big for this meat?” as one example. The equivalent in the UK is appending sentences with “as the actress said to the bishop” and is used in the same way.

Automating this process means identifying sentences that contain potential euphemisms and follow a particular structure – a “hard natural language understanding problem”, say the researchers. Kiddon and Brun began by analysing two different bodies of text – one containing 1.5 million erotic sentences, and another with 57,000 from standard literature.

They then evaluated nouns, adjectives and verbs with a “sexiness” function to determine whether a sentence is a potential TWSS. Examples of nouns with a high sexiness function are “rod” and “meat”, while raunchy adjectives are “hot” and “wet”.

Their automated system, known as Double Entendre via Noun Transfer or DEviaNT, rates sentences for their TWSS potential by looking for particular elements such as nouns that can be interpreted in multiple ways. The researchers trained DEviaNT by gathering jokes from twssstories.com and non-TWSS text from sites such as wikiquote.org…

…The system turned out to be around 70% accurate, but the pair say this is deceptively low because much of the training data did not consist of TWSS jokes, and with a more even data set it could achieve 99.5% precision.

Alfred Hitchcock makes a TWSS joke:

The action picks up at around 1:25.

Davidson County, Tennnessee, Criminal Court Clerk David Torrence has a pretty sweet gig: a $120,000 annual salary, five weeks of paid vacation, and a government car.

But he still can’t drag his ass into the office more than three days per week. Nashville’s WSMV reports:

On April 6, while Torrence’s employees at the clerk’s office were working, the I-Team found him at home picking up sticks and spraying his yard for bugs.

On April 8, he never went to the office. He spent part of the day using his county car instead of his personal Corvette to run errands. From his home, he drove to a bank then to a liquor store. He got back in the car and headed home . . .

As the criminal court clerk, his only duties lie in the office, keeping the criminal courts operating. But the garage card swipes show he wasn’t in the office for about half of 2010.

“You only worked about 50 percent of the time; only 50 percent of the time you were in this office. How do you explain that?” asked I-Team chief investigative reporter Jeremy Finley.

“It is what it is,” Torrence said. Torrence said he takes Wednesdays and Fridays off every week.

“I’m working Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays,” said Torrence . . .

The news team also found 18 weeks in which Torrence only worked two days.

In fairness to Torrence, he didn’t spend all of those off days doing yard work or running personal errands in his government-issued car. Sometimes, he explained, he also played golf. He added that he has no plans to change his work habits, noting, “I’ve now been elected to my fifth term, so I must be doing something right.”

It isn’t in the linked article, but the report I caught last night also said Torrence recently had two openings in his office. But he didn’t bother advertising those vacancies. Instead, he hired his sons.

I don’t really see a problem with this, either. We shouldn’t expect one of the highest-paid government officials in Nashville to carry his own clubs.

s.

In 1989 Donald Trump took out a full page ad in four New York City newspapers calling for the execution of the alleged rapists in the infamous Central Park Jogger case. Never mind that the five alleged assailants were all minors, or that rape wasn’t a capital crime. There was a moral panic to be stoked.

And stoked it was. New York’s media parted with their tradition of not publishing the names of minors accused of crimes. The case gave us the term “wilding”, described at the time as the name violent youth gangs gave their sprees of crime and terror, but which was most likely the result of an NYPD detective who misunderstood the lyrics to a Tone Lōc song. The case made national headlines, and fueled the growing myth of the super-predator, in which the law-and-order crowd terrified white suburbia with tales of a rising class of young, black uber-criminals. The explosion in violent juvenile crime predicted by the likes of William Bennett and John DiIulio, Jr. never happened.

If Trump had his way, all of the Central Park Five would have been dead by 2002. That’s the year Matias Reyes, already in prison for rape and murder, confessed to the crime, and insisted he acted alone. DNA tests had already confirmed that only one person raped victim Trisha Meili. Further testing showed Reyes was that person. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morganthou later vacated the convictions of the other five suspects, all of whom had already served their sentences for the attack.

Now, one of the wrongly convicted, Raymond Santana, wants Trump the presidential candidate to apologize. From NY1:

Santana was 14 years old at the time. He says Trump’s call for the “death penalty” helped fuel the media firestorm before the suspects even went to trial.

“It says a lot about his character. If he can give the death penalty to 14-year-old, 15-year-old kids then there’s nothing he would not do. Those are characteristics of a tyrant, not characteristics of a president,” Santana said.

Santana served seven years in prison in connection with the rape and beating of Trisha Meili.

All five of the accused have sued the city. That lawsuit is still pending.

Here’s another one from the “Songs From My Couch” session we did with Nashville band the Cold Stares. I admire anyone with the guts to rhyme “John Lee Hooker” with “short-order cooker.”

Thanks again to Mark Crozier and Dave Johnson for their excellent sound and video work.

• Alternet publishes more conspiracy-mongering TSA nonsense from Mark Ames and Yahsa Levine. Remember folks, it’s not what you actually believe that’s important, it’s that you’re always on the opposite side of the bad guys.
• Cops raid wrong house on a prostitution warrant.
• Police union files grievance because police chief made a drug arrest. Apparently, the chief wasn’t allowed to make arrests under the collective bargaining agreement.
• Great moments in intellectual property numbskullery: here and here. (Links via Scott Greenfield.)
• The ACLU and free speech.
• “Lie back and think of England.”
• Dumb proposed law of the week.
• Here’s a bit more on the Florida judge who was confronted by cops who had gone to the wrong house.

So, so good.

Last month, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.) suggested the government give every school-age child his own iPad. According to The Hill, when he was subsequently mocked for the proposal by right-wing talk radio, he strangely defended his idea by arguing “that technology is a product of the First Amendment, and also necessary to help maintain First Amendment rights.”

This month? Jackson has reversed course, and is now assailing the iPad as a job-killer, and—again, weirdly—as a foreign threat to the First Amendment.

I wish I were making this up.

A few short weeks ago I came to the House floor after having purchased an iPad and said that I happened to believe, Mr. Speaker, that at some point in time this new device, which is now probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs … now Borders is closing stores because, why do you need to go to Borders anymore? Why do you need to go to Barnes & Noble? Buy an iPad and download your book, download your newspaper, download your magazine….

…what becomes of publishing companies and publishing company jobs? What becomes of book stores and librarians and all of the jobs associated with paper? Well, in the not-too-distant future such jobs simply will not exist.

Steve Jobs is doing pretty well. He’s created the iPad. Certainly it’s made life more efficient for Americans, but the iPad is produced in China. It’s not produced here in the United States. So the Chinese get to take advantage of our First Amendment values, that is, to provide freedom of speech through the iPad to the American people.

You really can’t argue with that logic. Mostly because you really can’t comprehend it.

Please, no one tell Jackson about what has happened to the typewriters.

Reason.tv on your iPad and your patriotism:

• “We received a report that you may have put a Kraft single on imported sopressata. Mind if we look around?”
• A heartwarming tale of jury nullification.
• Obama’s crackdown on pain patients.
• This one may be more difficult to disprove.
• “In Defense of Flogging.” BTW, Peter Moskos will  be one of your guest-bloggers while I’m on vacation, starting next week.
• “Make way, peasant!” I’ve written about some related issues.

For you Agitatortots looking for employment:

$8.50-$11.00/hr Position available working 8am to 5pm, Monday-Friday, 40 hrs/wk for approximately 6 months enforcing the Citys Weed Ordinance. Will drive throughout the City checking for weed violations, verifying citizen complaints, using computer to conduct property searches for ownership and preparing documents for court actions and council billing. Able to deal courteously with the public. Requires use of personal vehicle for inspections (mileage to be reimbursed). Must have valid MO Drivers License + proof of liability coverage prior to hiring. Able to work in summer temps and around noxious plants and other fumes. Official City of Columbia application must be submitted to HR Dept. Open until filled.

Not to be confused with these Columbia, Missouri, weed inspectors.

(Thanks to Eapen Thampy for the tip.)

In Florida.

Broward Circuit Court Judge Ilona Holmes, her sister and her sister’s family says they were ordered at gun point by several Broward Sheriffs Deputies on Easter Sunday to come out of her sister’s home with their hands up.

It was no evening of peace for the Deerfield Beach family, who’d just finished dinner with friends and family, and sent extra Easter dinner to a needy family connected with their church. Then, at 8:20 p.m., police got a call about a possible burglary next door. But a bad address caused police to go to the wrong home.

“Do I feel safe?” asked Carmita Scarlett, the homeowner and sister of Judge Holmes. “No, absolutely not. No, no. So much confusion, so much anger. So much, almost like, resentment. You know, ‘you made the mistake and,’ I told them, ‘I’m the victim and you’re upset with me?’”

The call to police said there might be a burglar inside 235 Southwest 4th Street. But there is no 235. Only 236 and 230.

Arriving police outside spotted someone inside 230 – Neville Scarlett was in the kitchen cleaning up the Easter dinner plates – and thought he might be the burglar.

He was not…

“There’s a man with a gun and he’s going to shoot me!!” yelled Carmita. “I thought it was the robber!” Her sister, Judge Holmes, came running to the kitchen. The judge carries a legal firearm and immediately pulled it out and held it in her hand.

“She said ‘Who are you!? What are you doing?!’ He said ‘this is BSO.’ She said, ‘this is Circuit Court Judge Ilona Holmes!!’” Carmita said.

“‘I’m the owner of this home. I’m Carmita Scarlett. Why are you at my home?’ I kept saying that. They said ‘put your hands up and come outside,’” she said.

If this had been a drug raid and the police had actually broken into the home, we’d probably be looking at a body or two.

Some of you asked what happened to yesterday’s post about the Las Vegas man who was beaten for recording a cop.

Let’s just say I recommend you make a donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

No, I wasn’t served. But some friends who deal with copyright law advised I take the post down. Not because I did anything wrong—a link and an excerpt of an article are more than covered by fair use—more  just to avoid a lot of hassle. Much as I’d like to take a bold stand against the copyright trolls at Righthaven, a big fight over a single post isn’t worth my time right now.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal (and a number of other newspapers) is apparently hellbent on making itself completely irrelevant in the information age. Far be it from me to get in their way.

. . . over at Hit & Run.

• Hungary’s Fidesz party makes a bid for permanent rule. This could get interesting. And hey, I’ll be there next week!
• Great post by my friend Tim Lee on the failure of economic indicators to reflect information-age standard of living improvements.
• Good dissection of the TSA’s pointless liquids restrictions.
• “A storybook for exhausted parents.”
• Amazing how quickly somelose their democratic values once their own party is in power: “Despite many reasons for caution — the words George W. Bush foremost among them — I’m becoming more of a believer in an imperial presidency in domestic policy.”
• Context for the royal wedding.
• NRO writers credit governor’s call for prayer with bringing rain to Texas. Next up: Texas prayers bring an end cancer, turn all the state’s gay people straight.

So I never got around to updating you on my feud with the IRS. (See here, here, and here).

Quick summary to catch you up: Last year, the IRS rejected my tax return due to a “faulty Social Security number”. Apparently, someone else had also filed under my number. I then engaged in an increasingly frustrating series of letters and phone calls to try to get the damn thing straightened out. All on my own time, and at my own expense. But it wasn’t my mistake. The whole situation was complicated by the fact that I moved a couple weeks after filing, and no matter how many times I told them this, no matter how many times I asked them to change my address in their files, they kept sending all updates and notices to my old address.

After my last update, many of you suggested I call the IRS help line. I did. It was a really frustrating conversation. I explained the situation to the woman, who then replied, “Well what do you want me to do?”

I replied, “I’d like you to help me get my refund, and to get this corrected so I don’t have to go through it next year.”

To which she replied, “Oh, you’ll almost certainly have to go through it again next year.”

“Why?”

“Because if someone filed under your Social last year, they’ll probably use it again.”

“But that’s why I’m calling. Once I prove I’m the rightful person using that number, can’t they make a note to make sure that in the future, the return with my name on it is the only return they’ll accept under that Social Security number?”

“They can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because they can’t.”

Pause, as I bite my lip.

“So what would you like me to do?”

“I want you to help me get my refund, and make sure I don’t have to go through this crap again next year.”

“Yes, but what do you specifically want me to do?”

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what you can do. I don’t know how the IRS works. Clearly they have my address wrong. I’d like them to change it. And I’d like them to make sure whoever filed under my number this year doesn’t do it again.”

“Yes, but what do you want me to do? You have to tell me specifically what actions you want me to take.”

“Again, how would I know that? You’re the taxpayer advocate. Aren’t you supposed to know that?”

These quotes are taken from memory. So they’re obviously approximate. But it went on like this, with me getting increasingly angry, she getting increasingly obstinate. I finally gave up. (I am proud to say I didn’t use a single, goddamned profanity during the entire conversation.)

A few days later, my refund came in the mail. It had been sent to my old address, of course. A former neighbor was kind of enough to forward it to me. Which means it had actually been sent before I called the taxpayer advocate. Yet it still wasn’t noted in whatever computer screen she was looking at. Or it was, and she didn’t tell me. This was last December. So it took eight months to get all of this straightened out. They also paid me about 15 dollars in interest.

A couple weeks later, I got another notice from the IRS. This one was sent directly to my new address. Hey, they got it right! What did it say? It was a reminder that on my 2010 return, under penalty of law, I am required to report and pay taxes on that 15 dollars I “earned” in interest while the federal government held my refund.

Here’s the punchline:  I just learned tonight that my 2010 return has again been rejected due to a “faulty Social Security number.”

Which I guess means I’ll now get to do this all over again.

If you’re looking for a bright side here, the “taxpayer advocate” did correctly warn me that the IRS would once again screw up this year. So if nothing else, I guess federal employees are at least pretty competent when it comes to predicting the incompetence of other federal employees.

Nashville.

• Anti-pot politician busted with pot.
• Dumb PC controversy of the week.
• The National Jazz Museum in Harlem obtains a world-class, never before heard collection of great recordings from jazz’s golden age. But thanks to copyright law, you probably won’t get to listen to any of it.
• While we’re at it, dumb “There Oughtta Be a Law” proposal of the week.
• Sweet story about “Patrick” the miracle pit bull from Newark.
• Exploring Argentina’s secret death camps.
• This list made me laugh. RE: #17, I’ve never had cornbread that good. But spoon bread? Definitely.
• What your phone knows about you.
• And now: a Homeland Security reality show.

In April 2009 I blogged about the case of John Kunco, a Pennsylvania man convicted of a rape in 1992 based mostly on the testimony of a bite mark expert. The Innocence Project asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to grant Kunco a new trial, based mostly on the 2009 National Academy of Sciences report on forensic evidence that found no scientific evidence to support the proposition that it’s possible to trace bite marks in human skin to one person to the exclusion of all others.

A quick summary from my post last year:

Two forensic odonotologists, or bite mark experts, named Michael N. Sobel and Thomas J. David testified that they were able to use ultraviolet light to isolate and photograph the woman’s wounds. Based on that photograph they were able to match the wounds to Kunco’s teeth, to the exclusion of anyone else. Their testimony grows more absurd when you consider that the photograph was taken five months after the rape, after the wounds had mostly healed.

Sobel and David wrote an article about their analysis in the Kunco case for a 1994 edition of the Journal of Forensic Sciences. In that article, they explain that “the technique used followed the recommendations developed by other odontologists.” One of the two footnotes to that sentence points to an article written by none other than . . . now-disgraced Mississippi bite mark expert, Dr. Michael West.

There’s no question that bite mark testimony was critical to securing Kunco’s conviction. The excellent new Bite Mark Evidence blog notes this passage from the prosecutor’s closing argument:

[T]here’s no way, no way on this earth, for Mr. Kunco to explain how his tooth marks got on Donna Seaman’s shoulder unless you accept the fact that he’s the one who attacked and brutalized Mrs. Seaman. That’s the only explanation, ladies and gentlemen. That’s why the evidence is better than fingerprints or hair samples … [T]he bite mark on Danna Seaman’s shoulder was as good as a fingerprint. And I submit to you it was that, ladies and gentlemen, for all intents and purposes. Ladies and gentlemen, I’d submit to you that John Kunco should have just signed his name on Donna Seaman’s back, because the bite mark on Donna Seaman’s shoulder belongs to John Kunco.

There was no other physical evidence linking Kunco to the crime scene.

I missed the decision when it came out, but last October Pennsylvania Jude Rita Donovan Hathaway refused Kunco’s request for a new trial. Hathaway acknowledged the limitations of bite mark testimony, and that the reliability of said testimony has been called into question (to put it mildly). So why did she deny Kunco relief?

To get a new trial post-conviction, you have to show that you’ve discovered new evidence that could not have been discovered at the time of trial, and that given the new evidence, no reasonable juror would convict you. But in Pennsylvania, you also need to file your petition within one year of discovering the new evidence.

Kunco did file his petition within one year of the release of the NAS report. But Hathaway ruled that the research upon which the NAS report was based was published in other sources much earlier. Kunco, she ruled, should have filed within a year of the publication of that research. In other words, the expert testimony used to convict Kunco may well have been fraudulent, but Hathaway is going to keep him in prison anyway, basically on a technicality (this is similar to what’s happening in the Eddie Lee Howard case).

The NAS report was a synthesis of research across nearly every forensic discipline. It was a landmark report, commissioned by Congress in response to the rash of DNA exonerations. The cruel conundrum here is that when other people convicted on bite mark testimony have filed for relief and cited the publication of an article in a narrowly-read scientific journal (also like Eddie Lee Howard in Mississippi), they’ve been denied on the argument that a peer-reviewed article here and there isn’t enough of a scientific consensus to overturn a jury verdict, especially if you already challenged the state’s bite mark expert at trial. If Kunco had filed shortly after that first journal article disputing bite mark evidence was published, and had he lost, in most states he would then be barred from making additional post-conviction claims on the same topic, even if more articles then came out showing a consensus that he was right.

Hathaway then goes on to misstate the findings of the NAS report. She writes:

The [NAS] Report does not, however, conclude that the use of bitemark analysis and comparison has lost general acceptance in the scientific community of forensic odontology. Rather, it specifically acknowledges that “the majority of forensic odontologists are satisfied that bite marks can demonstrate sufficient detail for positive identification.”

Two problems here. First, Hathaway is only quoting the first part of that sentence. Second, she has also taken the entire sentence out of context. Here’s the complete sentence, in proper context:

Although the majority of forensic odontologists are satisfied that bite marks can demonstrate sufficient detail for positive identification, no scientific studies support this assessment, and no large population studies have been conducted. In numerous instances, experts diverge widely in their evaluations of the same bite mark evidence, which has led to questioning of the value and scientific objectivity of such evidence.

Bite mark testimony has been criticized basically on the same grounds as testimony by questioned document examiners and microscopic hair examiners. The committee received no evidence of an existing scientific basis for identifying an individual to the exclusion of all others.

Leaves quite a different impression, doesn’t it? The disconnect here is that the NAS report is criticizing the entire field of forensic odontology. It isn’t surprising that a majority of forensic odontologists, many of whom have given bite mark-matching testimony themselves, would think that bite mark matching is legitimate science. It’s only slightly less absurd than saying that palm reading is a legitimate science because a majority of clairvoyants, some of whom are palm readers, say so. (I use the word slightly here because there are legitimate areas of forensic odontology, such as using dental records to identify human remains.)

Hathaway is also misleading here:

Even the defendants’ experts, in their remarkably uniform affidavits, state: “the NAS Report did not invalidate bite mark identification entirely,” nor did it report that bite mark identification fell into the realm of junk science” . . .

I guess that’s true. The NAS report did not specifically use the phrase junk science. It’s also true that the report didn’t “invalidate bite mark identification entirely.” Instead, the report concluded that with more research, bite mark identification might someday be useful as an investigative tool, and, in limited circumstances, might have some value in excluding suspects. (Such as if there’s a fresh, easily identified human bite mark on the body, and the chief suspect has no teeth.) But as noted above, the report was decisive in its conclusion about the use of bite mark analysis to identify one suspect to the exclusion of all others: It simply isn’t backed by any serious science. And this is exactly how bite mark evidence was used in Kunco’s case.

One other thing. As noted, the expert witnesses in Kunco’s case used a method of analysis used by disgraced Mississippi bite mark specialist Michael West. West has been cast out from the forensic odontology community. So even within the already-questionable field of bite mark matching, West and his methods are considered quackery.

Hathaway’s ruling here is appalling, as is the state’s willingness to keep a man in prison based on testimony we now know to be utterly unsupported by science. Judges and prosecutors with any sense of justice or shame ought to be tripping over themselves to give all of these bite mark cases a thorough review. Instead, they’re throwing up procedural and technical roadblocks to prevent the convicted from getting a fair trial untainted by crappy science.

Not really sure what to make of this, other than that it’s disturbing:

The U.S. Department of State is proposing a new Biographical Questionnaire for some passport applicants: The proposed new  Form DS-5513 asks for all addresses since birth; lifetime employment history including employers’ and supervisors names, addresses, and telephone numbers; personal details of all siblings; mother’s address one year prior to your birth; any “religious ceremony” around the time of birth; and a variety of other information.  According to the proposed form, “failure to provide the information requested may result in … the denial of your U.S. passport application.”

The State Department estimated that the average respondent would be able to compile all this information in just 45 minutes, which is obviously absurd given the amount of research that is likely to be required to even attempt to complete the form.

It seems likely that only some, not all, applicants will be required to fill out the new questionnaire, but no criteria have been made public for determining who will be subjected to these additional new written interrogatories.  So if the passport examiner wants to deny your application, all they will have to do is give you the impossible new form to complete.

It’s not clear from the supporting statement, statement of legal authorities, or regulatory assessment submitted by the State Department to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) why declining to discuss one’s siblings or to provide the phone number of your first supervisor when you were a teenager working at McDonalds would be a legitimate basis for denial of a passport to a U.S. citizen.

The new questions also ask for the names and contact information of all witnesses to your birth.

Reads like a tool to allow the State Department to turn down a passport when they can’t find a more legitimate reason.

(Via boingboing.)

Buffalo, New York:

Lying on his family room floor with assault weapons trained on him, shouts of “pedophile!” and “pornographer!” stinging like his fresh cuts and bruises, the Buffalo homeowner didn’t need long to figure out the reason for the early morning wake-up call from a swarm of federal agents.

That new wireless router. He’d gotten fed up trying to set a password. Someone must have used his Internet connection, he thought.

“We know who you are! You downloaded thousands of images at 11:30 last night,” the man’s lawyer, Barry Covert, recounted the agents saying. They referred to a screen name, “Doldrum.”

“No, I didn’t,” he insisted. “Somebody else could have but I didn’t do anything like that.”

“You’re a creep … just admit it,” they said.

You know where this is going. They got the wrong guy. Someone else had used Covert’s wireless connection to download child porn.

Law enforcement officials say the case is a cautionary tale.

It sure is. I can certainly think of some lessons we might draw. One might be: Maybe the cops should check to see if a suspect’s wireless network is secure, and therefore that they have the right guy, before they break into his home and point their guns at his head.

Another lesson: Maybe it’s not such a good idea to send the SWAT team after someone suspected of downloading—not even manufacturing—child porn in the first place. Are people who download kiddie porn known to be heavily armed?

As you might suspect, these aren’t the lessons the police drew from their violent, mistaken raid on Barry Covert. This is:

Their advice: Password-protect your wireless router.

Probably good advice, given that they don’t seem particularly concerned about their own mistakes in this case. Not doing so could well get you (or more likely, your dog) killed.

The case reminds me of one of the more amusing botched raids I’ve covered: The wrong-IP address, mistaken kiddie porn raid featuring lawman/SWAT officer Shaquille O’Neal.

• Gorgeous time lapse video of El Teido mountain in Spain.
• Republican state rep in Michigan gives liberal advocacy groups and talk shows some golden material.
• Op-eds on the online poker crackdown from Al D’Amato and poker pro Matt Matros.
• ACLU files a brief on behalf of Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones. Count on this to be forgotten next time a conservative uses the they-never-help-out-Christians version of the tired “Where’s the ACLU?” mantra.
• Beautiful shot of the moon—and a very tiny Saturn.

So as I mentioned previously, the Nashville band the Cold Stares did a “Songs From My Couch” session a couple months ago. I’m going to wait to post the interview and all four songs until I move over to AOL/Huffington Post. But here’s a sneak peak at the video for “Jesus Brother James”. Thanks to Mark Crozier and Dave Johnson for the great sound and video work. Thanks to my couch, as usual.

Be sure to catch the music video debut of Daisy the rock ‘n’ roll wonder dog at around the 1:50 mark.

• The latest vice that causes a “cocaine-like addiction”: fatty foods. With all these new cocaines, new heroins, and heroin- and cocaine-like addictions out there, it’s good to know those poor DEA agents will still have jobs once we finally win the drug war.
• Fascinating article on “wet houses”, where unapologetic alcoholics go to get their drink on—and are “surprisingly happy”.
• Conversations you’ll only find on the Internet. (Possibly NSFW.)
• Some pretty horrifying government actions in Bahrain and Syria this week.
• Man sends death threats to Koch company, gets wrong Koch company.
• Happy birthday, Roy Orbison.